The present invention relates to a discharging and stacking device for flat articles to be conveyed, such as sheets of paper, documents, and the like.
In the conventional document-stacking devices, the stacking of very thin and limp documents frequently presents considerable difficulties, particularly if the conditions of the documents are very different, as is the case with used documents, for example.
German Printed Application 1,247,711, for example, proposes a stacking device which appears to be usable for these purposes. In that device, the documents to be stacked are discharged from the conveying system by means of a diverter and fed to a receiving drum having intakes which cause the documents to be sucked up. Before being stacked, the documents are separated from the receiving drum by belts, and braked by a pneumatic device. The structure of this stacking device permits energy-saving operation as a result of the intermittently operating pneumatic braking device, but requires a relatively large amount of mechanical apparatus. Furthermore, the stacking of very limp documents poses problems because, on the one hand, the trailing edge of a stacked document may at any time come into contact with the newly arriving documents or with the receiving drum, so the possibility of damage to the documents can not be excluded, and, on the other hand, the belt which separates the documents from the receiving drum constantly rubs on the last stacked document along a large surface, which also involves the risk of the document being crumpled or damaged.